Last night, I managed to clinch 7 hours of sleep. However, I found myself trying very hard to keep awake during chemistry. Elizabeth told me after class that she was contemplating on poking me to keep me awake. There was elect geog common test today and for some reason, I didn't see anything labelled "Y" in the diagram they gave. It's either my eyesight or my brain that is going to kill me. 6 marks (24% gone). sigh..

After fencing, I had to walk all the way to the bus stop (the very inconvenient way) because the security guards locked up the side gate before 5.30pm which is very early. In fact, today is the earliest day I came home and when I reached, my mom greeted me with a, "wow! you're very early today (6.15pm)." I took 165 and I met Alfreda. I happened to meet her on the bus last night too. She was amazed we met again. Turns out, she usually changes bus at the inconvenient bus stop.

I did violin practice from 6.45-8.45pm and stopped for 20mins for dinner. I spent about an hour on the double concerto. Sigh, I have never ever spent so much of my quota on a single piece before.

There's tutti tomorrow and there's CIP too. I have no idea if it's confirmed. I smsed Mrs Khor but she hasn't replied yet so I think she's not intending to reply. Sigh. I just hope we can act (be) blur tomorrow and say nobody told us (which is true) and skip CIP.

Sunday

Today, I came back from church at around 2. Jean was busy asking qy (uncle/ds) many theological questions which, according to Andrew lasted for about an hour. Jean and him were busy talking in the library while the rest of us just rotted around. And yay, I remembered to ask nai nai and ye ye to come for the string concert.

In the afternoon, I did violin practice from 2.45-4.15pm. I think my family has an excuse not to go for the concert - they've already heard the whole repertoire and they are going to be hearing full encores for the next 4 days. I practiced scales and was wide awake then. But 25mins later (pieces), I started getting sleepy. The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba wasn't well played because I didn't look at the notes properly and had to stop a few times to check my location on the score. The rest were relatively alright, but I find the rondo alla turca by mozart score very tiny. This is not suitable for people who are half asleep while practicing. As for the double concerto, I practiced at 100beats/min. I'm still trying to get used to it being so fast.

Then, I embarked on a mission to finish 1 of 2 zuo wens on my waiting list. There were 5 parts to it because in just 2 paragraphs, I got so sleepy I slept thrice totalling 1 hour and then I stopped for dinner which kept me awake for the next 2 pages I wrote. I have come to the conclusion that 2 weeks of the lack of sleep (6.5 hours a day) has just started taking its toll on me. The word limit/target was 2 full pages. I like the new zuo wen paper because there is this redundant empty column on the right that takes up roughly 3 squares each row. This is especially useful when your mission has targets like this.

My parents left the house at around 6 for a wedding dinner. The problem/advantage of being the yougest in the family is that you never get to have authority over/be responsible for a family member at any one time. Even if Jean was the only one at home, she'd only get to rule over/take care of herself. Yay?

Friday

This is the edited version of my post earlier today. I was too sleepy just now after coming back from Changi Airport.

Today, school ended at 10.30am. It was a day I looked forward to. We played soccer for PE and it was fun. My team won 4-0. Atiqa is good. She scored half the goals. Evangeline, Audrey, Jie Ying and I left school at about 11am. We took 186 to Queenstown mrt station and got off at Changi Airpot. It took about an hour. After walking around aimlessly for a while, we finally found the display shelf full of prohibited items for checking in. We are planning to use that. After that, we ate lunch and went home. When we were on the MRT, I was trying to practice making the sound. Evangeline was teaching me. Something like, put air under your lips, the blow it out and it'll produce a "pukk" sound. Jie Ying kept glancing up from her ds to take a look at me and laugh (that is a constant) so I didn't practice much of it. I don't know what makes it so funny.

When I reached home, I got out of the lift and walked towards my door but I realised something wasn't right. There was a pair of school shoes outside the house that didn't belong to Jean or me. I nearly wanted to go back into the lift because I thought I got off at the wrong floor. But when I looked at the door and area around it, I was quite certain ths was the one I looked at everyday. I pressed the doorbell and had to wait around half a minute before someone opened the door. When the door opened, it was actually Jean's friend. But it gave me a shock. She looked a lot like Jean but just that she was taller. I thought Jean had suddenly shot up in height in just one morning. I entered the house and went into Jean's room to ask for an explanation. Thankfully, she had already told my parents or I knew she would definitely have been killed if it was my mom and not me who rang that doorbell. It turned out that her friend ate lunch with her and came back with jean as she had french at moelc at 4.30pm. Jean had to go back to school at 4 for her band practice (they're in the finals of their intra-school band competition so they're working hard). They left together at 4.

I did violin practice from 4.45-6.15. I was 25% asleep while doing scales. But I woke up while practicing the pieces. Right now, I'm just concentrating on string concert pieces for the rest of the week. After that, I'll continue with violin lessons and the normal workload comes back. There's something unusual - Jean went to sleep at 8.30pm just now and she's still sleeping. I don't think she'll be awake till late tomorrow morning. She usually sleeps later than me (>11but I suspect it's 12) and she seems to have more homework than me.

Section for Jie Ying: I realised I haven't been putting this section recently. It's a sign of ageing. For now, I hope your ankle gets well soon.

Dooms Day

Today was the long awaited day that finally arrived. I left school at 12.20pm and reached home at about 12.45pm. Then, I took a shower, ate lunch and relaxed until 1.30pm. Then, I did violin practice until 2.45pm. We set off at about 3.10 and reached the verve music school 15 minutes before the exam (3.31pm). At that time, we were slightly worried as my accompanist was still stuck in a traffic jam. In the end, she didn't reach on time and I had to do the other tests first.

The examiner was a European guy. He was quite friendly. But Jean's hypothesis is that the more friendly examiners seem to be, the lower your marks. Now, this is scary. I did scales first. He asked for G major 3 octaves separate bow and I think I was smiling. Scales etc weren't that bad. When it came to double stop scales, he said, "E flat major, sixths". I was really happy. I thought I would be saved from the B flat thirds. But gah, he asked for that later and I was disappointed. It was slightly out of tune but it got better after a while. D major double stop octaves went well. Conclusion: Wasn't that bad. I got slightly shocked once or twice but it went alright.

Sight reading was good for 3 of 4 lines. The last line had some complicated rhythm which I didn't have time to look through within the 30 second try-out time. His 30secs seemed like 20. Sigh. I was suprised the high notes weren't that hard to play. Ms Kwok was right. It's the rhythm that trips me, not the notes. I ignored the rhythm at the last part as I was slightly lost but I managed the pizz at the end. Jean came back with the same story too.

Aural was easier than I thought. Execpt for modulation, Jean and I found out we both "tikamed" the answers. I asked to change my answer 3 times. Thankfully, the examiner was patient with my nonsense.

After the aural part, we found that my aural teacher had reached already so we continued with the pieces. Legende first. It was okay by my standards. The double stop part (aka blahblahblah) was slightly out of tune the first few bars but I stabilised after a while. Other than that, it went smoothly (i hope. Remember I'm ageing.). Czardas was alright too. I slipped once at the grace notes spiccato part. But the beginning and everything else was ok. The ending was good by my standards (so I went on to finish the last 2 bars, jie ying will know why). Gavotte en Rondeau didn't go that well. No major slips, but I could tell I was too excited to finish up the exam and get out of the room. My tempo was not very steady and I slipped a few times but I can't remember when and why. Jean said she was the opposite of me for pieces.

When I went out of the room, I was almost laughing. Yay, it's over now. Just have to wait for the results. Sigh. I think I'll pass, but I don't know with what. All I have gotten for my previous attempts were merit. Jean beat me all the time. And there's this joke she told me, "I got merit (married)". And most of the time, people who say this have suitable expressions on their faces.

There's tutti tomorrow and this whole week has been very torturing. Came back late everyday and didn't get enough sleep. I got sleepy at almost every opportunity. And I have to touch the violin for 4 hours tomorrow. Sigh. I need a good break. I won't practice on Sunday.

Today was a normal day at school. Had chem test but I think I can't type/say anything about it publicly until thursday. A math was hard and I'm glad I didn't spend Sunday studying for it. 

Yesterday, I got myself a shoulder extension. While walking into the toilet in school, I turned too early and banged my right shoulder against the protruding structure to lock up the door. I couldn't move my arm freely for a while and it hurts more than the head extensions. 

Then today, I got not exactly stabbed, but slashed on my right thigh. I wasn't wearing the leg armour (breeches) because I was too lazy to bring it. Someone went off target and ended up drawing a long line on my leg. But I think I was more violent. I stabbed that person very hard near the neck and also accidentally stabbed/slashed her leg.

I am going to do violin practice later. I'm watching a concert at esplanade on thursday night with the other o level music people. That means I might have to skip violin practice on thursday. But I hope I don't lose my technique on friday. Sigh, this is worrying me. There's tutti and sectionals tomorrow, that means violin practice at night again. This week is one of the most tiring and worrying ones. 

3 more days to doom!

1/3 of My Saturday

I reached school for strings at around 8.10am. Jie Ying seemed quite annoyed. We went up to the music room via the staffroom as the shutters were locked. Started tuning everyone up as soon as possible. We take about 20 mins to tune everyone properly (individually). Maybe that's an area to work on.

The seniors didn't come so I was looking forward to the break. During the break, I played legende and Czardas with Jie Ying. Yay, she managed to polish up the double stops part. I was so happy and couldn't believe my ears. This was the first time we were actually playing together at the blahblahblah part. I ended up laughing because I was too happy. But the laughing resulted in me going terribly out of tune, which seemed to amuse Jie Ying a lot. As the laughing disorder connoiseur, I started laughing at her laughing disorder which was starting to kick in. In the end, we both ended up laughing.

Pearlyn and Jie Ying think I have a poking disorder. But I think Jie Ying has a violence disorder. She poked (stabbed) me about 8-9 times. I wish I was wearing the fencing armour.

Tutti lasted 4 hours, which is a quadruple overdose of violin practice for me (if this is what is meant by over-practicing...) . I reached home at 1.45pm. Ate spaghetti for lunch. My mom cooked the sauce/toppings while my dad did the cooking of noodles. I think I inherited his cooking genes (if the both of us even have any of that type). He turned on the stove for a while, then shut it off, picked up a string of noodle and then tasted/ate it. Then, turned on the stove again and repeated the above steps at least 5 times. For this cooking method to work, one should add in slightly more than what was originally intended.

Then, I went online and met jie ying. She went off for violin lesson. I'm going out soon too. 6 more days to doom. Part of me wants to get it quickly done and over with, the other is hesitant.

11 July Part II

There was a troop of visitors at my aural teacher's house. Her parents were entertaining them while she conducted her lessons. My violin teacher arrived shortly after us. It's been a long tradition between Jean and I that the oldest has to start first. Start meaning have lesson first. It's not particularly nice to begin first. I started off with Legende. My aural teacher played the piano. It was good. Ms Kwok polished our coordination a bit but it was mostly alright. Then, Czardas. My spiccato was pretty smooth. There was improvement from last week. Jean gets slightly nervous whenever she plays in front of people. So sometimes she messes up some parts and then frowns after every mistake. I find that amusing.

Last week, My czardas was unusually horrible. Jean thinks it's because I over-practiced. As for her case, I think she under-practiced. I really don't know which is worse.

After the reheasal, Ms Kwok wished us all the best. She said if we play at his standard, we will be fine. No need to worry. Then the rest, good luck... I don't know if I should worry.

I overheard her asking my aural teacher how her other student did. Oh, she also accompanied a student. And the depressing thing is, that student is a 12 year old girl. She took grade 8 too a few days ago. I feel so old. My aural teacher said she did well in the beginning but when she played czardas, her spiccato messed up a bit and she stopped. But she's very good. Gah. I'm ageing.

11 July Part I

Today is friday. It's supposed to be the best day of the week but not this time. The thought of violin exam is just making me ________ (i don't know). In school, bok teng and zeng xi were busy slapping me with their long rulers during Accident & Emergency math. I didn't hit them back until the after Emergency math. I tapped them lightly and they returned it with a hard smack. Thankfully, they ran off to the hall before I chased them with my ruler.

When I came home, I cooked a simple lunch for my mother and I. Her comments, "I hope you're not considering a cooking career..." Ah, she knows I'm not anyway. Jean wants/ed to be a chef. I remember a few years ago, Jean said she wanted the highest paying job, so my mother gave her the idea of a cardiologist. Then, she went crazy about that for a while. Next, she wanted to be a bagpipe player. Then, a boxer. I forgot what else was in between. Then she wanted to be a scientist (life science) and then a chef. I don't know what her latest ambition is but I heard it's to be nothing.

Going to leave the house at about 4.20pm to go to Kembangan. Final rehearsal with piano with Ms Kwok around. I have been counting down to this final rehearsal since a few weeks ago. Exactly 1 week to the dreaded day. And most probably I'll be going for the first half of school next friday. Photocopying the exam schedule for Mr Chua now by order of my mother.

Experiment on Effects of Tiredness on Playing the Violin

Experiment Aim: To determine if I play the violin better when I am tired or when I am not exposed to much activity yet. Playing the violin better, meaning that my intonation and overall sound is good, as well as feeling relaxed and comfortable while playing.

Hypothesis: I play the violin better after a long and tiring day at school, especially after strings practices.

Experiment 1: 7 July 2008 (Youth Day school holiday)
I woke up at 8am. After eating breakfast, I did my violin practice at 8.30am. Scales seemed alright at first because I chose to "close one ear". But after a while, I got irritated by the out-of-tuneness and started the process of fine tuning my technique. After struggling past scales, I went on to pieces. Gavotte en Rondeau was horrible. My e-string has a problem. Sometimes, it doesn't produce a sound when I cross from >Bb (a-string) to e-string (E open). That got me fed up. My bow didn't feel right and hence I played it horribly. Legende was much better because it was slower and more relaxing, allowing me to cool down. Intonation was better and bow felt alright. Double-stops picked up the pace and I started the vicious cycle again. Czardas was not that good either. Beginning was not good as I was already annoyed with my fingers so I couldn't shift around so easily. Slammed the violin back in it's case after overshooting my quota of 1 hour by 15mins.

Experiment 2: 8 July 2008 (normal day at school, played the violin during pure humans and reached home at 7pm)
Ate dinner before doing practice as there wasn't enough time to complete violin practice part 1 before dinner. Scales were good. Allowed myself to warm up by closing half an ear. After that, double stop scales were good too. Feeling a sense of achievement, I went on to Gavotte en Rondeau. It was good by my standards. Double stops and intonation were good and smooth. Had the same e-string problem but then I remembered what ms kwok said, "if the string doesn't produce the sound, don't stop-it's ok. Just continue." So I didn't get that irritated. Legende went alright. Double stops were slightly out of tune, but not that bad. Overall-good. Czardas, sigh sigh sigh. I think I lost concentration. Spiccato was not that smooth. After some polishing, it improved. I always only end my practice after I get the ending perfect a few times. I felt happy most of the practice and overshot my quota by half an hour.

Conclusion: Being slightly tired does help me play better. However, the ABRSM website's practice tips states "don't practice when you're tired". Now, I'm slightly confused over whether I'm normal or not. Just experimenting once for each case is not that accurate. Therefore, I shall have private experiments 2 more times after a tiring day and another 2 when I'm not tired. Then, I will come up with my final conclusion for the whole experiment.

Boredome

I am discussing the elect geog authentic learning project with Evangeline now. I have to type this post or I might just fall into a deep sleep in front of my computer. She is typing at a speed of 1 word every 30 seconds. And that's our script. I'm dying of boredome. I'm supposed to be doing the powerpoint. I've finished up till where she last left off.

I've finished all 98 puzzles from the Rush Hour game twice. You need to move the vehicles to get the red car out. The vehicles can only move either up-down or left-right. I've been playing that for the past few days. I spent about 15 minutes every night doing as many puzzles as possible before sleeping. If you are depressed, this is a good way to feel good about your intelligence. I started with the hardest level (total: 5 levels). It took me about 2 minutes per puzzle for that. The last 2 levels took me about 3-5 seconds. My brain has been abused and insulted twice.

I just realised 18 July (dooms day) is Racial Harmony Day. Won't be doing anything productive in school until 10am (recess). I think we'll just be sitting in the hall, rotting/boring to death. Now, I am contemplating on whether I should just skip school that day or not.

Ah Evangeline's done with her paragraph. Have to continue work soon. Jie ying, remember to bring your violin. Actually, I'm more worried I'll be the one forgetting. I only typed this because I just remembered. School holidays or rather working on projects tend to destroy many brain cells. Supposed to plan a product on environmental management. What about conserving precious brain cells to deter ageing?

Sunday Night

Something that made my sister and I laugh very hard:

"Hey, you have something there on your chin"

*feels chin*

"Oh, no, it's your other chin"

*feels again*

"No, not that one, the next one... "

Went for dinner outside. Ate at Swisshotel at Clarke Quay because my dad had some Maybank vouchers. The radio in the car is almost permanantly tuned to Symphony 92.4. On the way there, I heard a very weird version of Canon. They played it very fast, about 90 beats per minute or 1.5 time faster than it should have been. When they got to the fast part with many running notes, I was trying very hard to imagine what their fingers and bowarm looked like. They were playing separate bows, which made it even harder to imagine. So fast! Jean and I were looking at each other, dumbfounded (I know I should have been keeping my mouth closed). Whoever arranged that is insane. No, whoever played that probably escaped from Hougang chalet a.k.a. IMH (Institute of Mental Health).

I called jie ying to discuss the sectionals report template. She laughed nearly half the time. I think she's also one who escaped from the Hougang chalet. As the laughing disorder connoiseur, I declare jie ying's condition as one that is worsening. As for the chances of recovery, in my expert opinion, never.

After dinner, we walked around Singapore River. Then, we went inside Central where we parked the car. Tried to search for a supermarket but found none. Then, we went all the way to the rooftop and sat there. We watched people do bungee jumping. Each jump lasts only about 30 seconds, and the thrill gets less with each spring back. Beside the bungee jump was another structure. There, people tried to become pendulum bobs. They sat in a capsule and got pulled all the way up to a depression angle of almost 0 degrees. Then, "AAHHHHHHH.........." (noise pollution). I think the pendulum bob ride is more thrilling compared to the bungee jump. But then again, maybe it was just because the people who rode on that were more enthusiastic.

Jean: I want to sit on that just before I die

Me: I'll die sitting on that

Then, we went back home. The end.

Tomorrow: going to do violin practice in the morning, then go for a hair cut in the late morning. afternoon will be spent rotting at home and doing work. haven't finished Accident math yet.

An Additional Brain Extension

Now, let me give some insight on what happened just before I came home from church today. Since my 2 oldest cousins are still considered quite young (4 and 10 this year), Jean and I played with them in the kids' playground at a corner of our church building. There were those plastic houses and monkey bars etc. We played at the monkey bars. We were competing to see who could hang there for the longest amount of time. Since this was a kids' playground, I had to bend my legs while clinging (for dear life) onto the monkey bar. I won. Hooray! Then, I landed safely on the ground and took a step back to announce my accomplishment. Then, *bang again*. As expected, nothing exploded. But my head really almost got cracked into 2 equal portions. I banged the right bottom corner of my head against the bar. The extension due to the hall piano was just diagonally across, top left corner. I quickly clutched the back of my head to make sure it was still attached to the other half of my head. Thankfully, my head is still in one piece. I stood in that position for about half a minute before lowering my head and making my way out of the dangerous trap.

Just when the bump on my head from the hall piano is recovering, I get another one at the back. Sigh. When will this vicious cycle end?

Saturday, 5 July - A Tiring Day

I went for strings in the morning. I usually call it "strings" and not "tutti" bacause I was influenced by the way my sister calls her string ensemble practice. It's also a more familiar term to my parents who seem almost in shock when I say, "I have tutti tomorrow". The seniors came again. I saw jocelyn for the first time. I think it was her first time seeing me too. I got a shock when I realised tutti was going to end at 12.30pm. I had to run all the way down, untrap myself from the locked staircases and finding a suitable route before finally reaching the handphone area. I told Evangeline not to come so early. But I forgot to tell my parents I would be late. They were supposed to buy back lunch for me after strings because I had to do the sculpture thing later. I didn't bother running down again.

After the long and tiring session, I went for the sculpture thing. I went back home at 2.30pm. I was so tired I was half sleeping on the bus. I had to force myself to wake up every few minutes to check on my location. Right now, I'm at home. I took a shower and I don't feel that sleepy now. I have to go out in 5 mins to go to church. I'll be there till 9+.

The rest of my family was eating lunch at my grandparents' house. Gah, and I think Jean had a good time playing there with our 2 cousins. Altogether, I have 3 cousins. They are boys. And the age gap is wide. 5, 11 and (15years minus 1 day) years of age difference. Sigh. I feel that I'm ageing. Oh and what's worse, there's a fourth cousin coming up in August. A girl. 15+ years of age difference. Imagine, I'm 20 and she's 5. Sigh again.. (Jie ying, I don't have a sighing disorder. It's you.)

Going off now.

My Dreadful yet Memorable Friday

Today is the best day of the week. That's because it's Friday, which also means tomorrow is saturday, and the following day is sunday, and tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow is a school holiday. AAHHH!!! I just realised Evangeline and I haven't finished elect geog authentic learning yet! Argh!! And right now, I'm listening to the horrible double concerto jean and i played.
The following reasons:
- I want to feel good about my violin skills (especially after violin lesson today)
- Slight depression since violin exam is in exactly 2 weeks
- I have the urge to torture my ears
However, I've had enough laughing this whole day and at Jie Ying's blog just now. So I need to rest my laughing mechanisms.

An update on my brain extension. Oh, my brain extension is the bump i got from accidentally banging me head against the hall piano. It still hurts and there's still a slight extension but it's shrinking by the day. I don't know if losing a brain extension is good or bad.The most important thing is that it must not has not made me like english, chinese etc. That's a good sign. The laughing disorder connoiseur (me) officially declares that all pianos should be covered with a sponge, or everyone playing the piano must be armed with a helmet for safety reasons.

Today, we ran 2.4km for the NAPHA test. My timing was 14.03 i think. Deproved by about one minute. But i didn't sweat as much as i usually do during fencing, so I think i didn't work myself that hard. For some particular reason, Jie Ying could constantly be seen laughing to herself while running, especially while running past me, the official laughing disorder connoiseur. I think her laughing disorder is worsening. Trust me.

I was happy because assembly ended late. So I didn't have to wait so long for my mom to pick me up for violin lesson. After picking me up, we went to MGS to pick Jean up. We arrived early. I think she only ends school at 2.20pm. Each period is 40mins. I would definitely die during chinese or english if I were her. But that also means recess is 40mins. When she came into the car, she showed me a prize she got for solving a rubik's cube during her school's science fair. It was this container of slimy substance. When I put it on my hand, it almost flowed right off. It's semi liquid, semi solid. When it flows off, it doesnt have any remaining traces. When it's on your hand, it feels wet. It looks like mucus, and not to mention it's texture too. I played with it the whole journey. It was fun and amusing. This was one of the rare times I was actually awake while travelling to Ms Kwok's house.

Today's violin lesson was the last before my exam. The dreaded day is only 2 weeks away. Argh! I plan to go off from school early that day so I can warm up. The exam starts at 3.16pm, have to be there earlier. It's at Ang Mo Kio avenue 6. First time it's so convenient. Grade 3 was at Ngee Ann City, Grade 5 was at katong mall, grade 7 was at Paragon.

We started off with pieces first. I played czardas first. It was ok, except the grace notes etc needed polishing and bow arm & finger coordination. Then, I played Gavotte en Rondeau. Ms Kwok was quite pleased with that. This time, I didn't rush and took time to "breathe". Then, Legende. Again, it was quite good. The double stops were quite alright. I think it has improved a lot from when I first started on it. I dreaded the part and it sounded horrible. At least now, even my mom thinks it's more pleasant to listen to. As for Jean, she's always dozing off as per normal while I'm having my lesson. I hope there's no particular connection to my playing. Then, she decided to skip listening to scales. She has quite a lot of hope in my scales. So she tested a few just to be sure. It went alright. Next, sight-reading. Ms Kwok thinks it's catching weird rhythms that's more important. She believes that once you get the rhythm and the first 2 bars, the rest just flows naturally. I think her theory is quite accurate. I hope it works for real during the exam again.

Jean faced more problems during violin lesson today. She is still trying to get used to the new violin. There's so much to get used to, but more importantly, the pressure. That's probably the hardest. All the best to her. 2 weeks left. She's going to have to practice hard. In lieu of this new change, her mistakes and unpleasant playing was forgivable.

There's no violin lesson next week. Today felt like a "last day of the world". Ms Kwok asked a few times, "Do you have any questions? Are you sure?" And I always said I was fine. She also did some couselling, like, just go into the room, don't play to impress, just play to enjoy etc. I hope it works. Not that I've encountered serious problems in my past 3 exams, but this one seems more important and stressful. Never worked so hard before. Next week, Ms Kwok's coming over to Ms Yao's house. Oh, she's my aural teacher + piano accompanist for my exam. She accompanied jean and me last year too. Yao Xiao Yun. From China, and her parents are pretty artistic as well. Maybe her art genes were inherited. We'll be rehearsing the 2 pieces. Gavotte en Rondeau is a solo piece-no accompaniment, unfortunately. That means my mistakes will be very obvious. Next week's rehearsal will be at 5pm. Ms Kwok has an "unimportant" concert in the evening so she just wants to go down straight and not reach too early.

After violin lesson, we dropped Jean off at school. She has to attend the Sec 2's family night. A bonding session for parents and siblings. Apparantly, the rest of her family is at home rotting away. I'm typing this, my mom is doing some work and my dad is watching a movie. And we spent time talking about random things which I cant even remember. So Jean is in school bonding with her other classmates. My mom is going to pick her up soon.

There's tutti tomorrow. I'll be discussing the geog authentic learning with evangeline tomorrow at 11.30 after tutti, then the NE scultpture at 12.30. Sigh.. Such a depressing day ahead. No, not the tutti part. I look forward to it.

Jie ying's section: your post was worth the wait. I laughed at my computer screen while reading it. And a reminder, I don't have a laughing disorder.

My Abnormal Thursday

Today, we had physics practical. I redid my experiment 3 times. First time, I forgot to remove the silly 4.0g wire. Second time, I can't remember (sorry but I am ageing) but something went wrong again. Third time, I finally got it. I was perspiring like mad. It was worse than violin practice because at least I use a fan. Just sitting down and killing brain cells made me lose so much water. Then the girl from the India exchange stood in front of me the whole time. I felt pressurized, like every move I made was under close scrutiny. Each time I had to erase or redo something, she could be seen making notes. Gah. Unfortunate me.

As I walked back to class from the physics lab, I saw Ms Tan teaching in 3/1. And she spotted me too. She told me to come in. Music was postponed (cancelled, more like) to next week. She had to do something related to cluster arts festival I think. Didn't hear properly. (Another sign of ageing)

After school, I had to drop by at Singapore Bible College (SBC) to get the house key from my mother. She thought both Jean and I would be late today. Jean has German on Mondays and Thursdays. My mother used to work for CAAS. Then we had to move to US. So she stopped working and took care of Jean and I. When we came back, she continued to stay at home. Jean and I started on violin and so she took my sister and I for out for violin lessons. I don't think she trusted 7 & 8 year olds taking public tansport on their own. (Oh, we were living in Pasir Ris then, so it was nearer to Bedok and my father drove the car to work. Moved to Bishan in P5) Then, when her father (my grandfather) had cancer and passed on, she helped him continue his coffee business for a while, but later gave it to her brother in law. This year, a person from church was officially handed the SBC bookroom. So she asked my mom if she could help on some days. This eventually became my mom's part time job. Sometimes I think she should have just carried on with her previous proffessional life. She could have used her hard earned degrees. But then, I don't think I'd be who I am today.

I just read Jean's blog. If I had seen what she typed on 12 June earlier, I would have been happier.
"eh.. afterwards got aural lesson. prac exam coming up dangerously soon, and i dont feel that im at all prepared for it. i keep messing up and my fingers fumble over each other when im nervous. and i cant resist the temptation to let at least 1 note go out of tune.gah. and lynns suddenly getting quite good, i must say, so more pressure for me."
I discovered so much from her blog. Jean, I don't know if your're reading this. You better not give up violin after grade 8. Must wait until I'm done with O levels or I'll be in trouble.

Roughly 2 more weeks to my doomsday. I am still contemplating about whether or not I should go to school in the morning. About 1 more month before ms tan leaves. I don't want her to leave, but I also don't want to disagree with her decision. Sigh.. Not looking forward to both days.

My Normal Day

Today was a normal day at school. There was pure humanities today so I had 2 free periods. I was supposed to do Legende with Jie Ying but I didn't bring my violin because I had to carry fencing things. We went to the hall and the others played with the piano. I don't play the piano so I nearly died of boredome. After dunno who got up from the piano, I went over to play my daily dosage of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Then, after I finished struggling with it, I tried to find a fault in the piano that was making me play so lousily. I quickly lowered my head to examine the keys when suddenly, *bang*. No, the piano didn't explode. It was my head that nearly got cracked open. I bounced back up from the piano frame and looked around. No stars. But I could feel the pain on my head. I got up from the piano and tried hard to balance while walking to an empty part of the stage to sit. The pain subsided within 2-3mins. Shortly after, I noticed there was a bump on my head that either sarah or megan thought was a mosquito bite that swelled up. I have yet to see it's (deadly) effects.

There was Chinese common test today. The teacher thought it was one hour and I just believed her. Then 45mins later, she said apologised and told her we had only 5mins left. I still had 2 questions left . I rushed and managed to fill the lines with some nonsense. Regarding my poor head, I don't think it'll have any noticeable effects on chinese. It's already horrible and it can't be any worse. The knock didn't make me start liking chinese either, so I'm still safe for now.

After school, I spent some time in the music room practicing Legende with Jie Ying. I borrowed Pearlyn's violin and I wasn't used to it so I feel guilty for contributing to noise pollution. I went for fencing at 3.30pm. Jie Ying caught me running around the parade ground. Fencing was fun because I won all my bouts (matches) so yay.

Then, I came home and did violin practice part I (scales-153) for 40 mins. Then I ate dinner. The dish was slightly, no, overly spicy and I nearly had to call the bishan fire station. Then I continued with violin practice part II (the rest-pieces, sight reading by doing studies). I am only going to focus on examinable material for the next 17 days. I only touched Spring early last year and a few times in June this year. I think I won't play Spring anymore. I'll just repeat a piece-either gavotte en rondeau or czardas, so jie ying, please be prepared..